Philosophy of Technology E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 2653

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

The new edition of this authoritative introduction to the philosophy of technology includes recent developments in the subject, while retaining the range and depth of its selection of seminal contributions and its much-admired editorial commentary.

• Remains the most comprehensive anthology on the philosophy of technology available
• Includes editors’ insightful section introductions and critical summaries for each selection
• Revised and updated to reflect the latest developments in the field
• Combines difficult to find seminal essays with a judicious selection of contemporary material
• Examines the relationship between technology and the understanding of the nature of science that underlies technology studies

Leseprobe

Contents

Source Acknowledgments

Introduction to the Second Edition

Part I: The Historical Background

Introduction

1 On Dialectic and “Technē”

From the Republic

Notes

2 On “Technē” and “Epistēmē”

From Nichomachean Ethics

From Metaphysics

Notes

3 The Greek Concepts of “Nature” and “Technique”

The Concept of “Nature” among the Greeks

The Concept of “Technique” among the Greeks

Notes

4 On the Idols, the Scientific Study of Nature, and the Reformation of Education

Thoughts and Conclusions on the Interpretation of Nature as a Science Productive of Works

Notes

From Novum Organum

Notes

On the Idols and on the Scientific Study of Nature

Notes

Sphinx; or Science

Notes

5 Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View

First Thesis

Second Thesis

Third Thesis

Fourth Thesis

Fifth Thesis

Sixth Thesis

Seventh Thesis

Eighth Thesis

Ninth Thesis

Notes

6 The Nature and Importance of the Positive Philosophy

Notes

7 On the Sciences and Arts

Final Reply [by] J. J. Rousseau of Geneva1

Notes

References

8 Capitalism and the Modern Labor Process

From Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy

Notes

From Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

From Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology

Note

From Friedrich Engels, Dialectics of Nature

Notes

From Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy

Note

Part II: Philosophy, Modern Science, and Technology

Positivist and Postpositivist Philosophies of Science

Introduction

9 The Scientific Conception of the World: The Vienna Circle

Preface

1 The Vienna Circle of the Scientific Conception of the World

2 The Scientific World Conception

3 Fields of Problems

4 Retrospect and Prospect

Notes

10 Paradigms and Anomalies in Science

The Priority of Paradigms

Anomaly and the Emergence of Scientific Discoveries

Notes

11 Experimentation and Scientific Realism

A Plea for Experiments

Our Debt to Hilary Putnam

Interfering

Making

Methodological Remark

Parity and Weak Neutral Currents

PEGGY II

Bugs

Results

Comment

Moral

When Hypothetical Entities Become Real

Changing Times

Notes

12 Hermeneutical Philosophy and Pragmatism: A Philosophy of Science

1 Introduction

2 Elements of Consensus

3 Pragmatism

4 Hermeneutical Philosophy

5 Meaning

6 Philosophical Inquiry

7 Theoretical Understanding in a Hermeneutical Perspective

8 Hermeneutic Philosophy and Classical Pragmatism; Common Themes

9 Themes Peculiar to Pragmatism

10 Themes Peculiar to Hermeneutic Philosophy

11 Implications for the Philosophy of Science

Notes

References

13 What are Cultural Studies of Science?

Notes

References

14 Revaluing Science: Starting from the Practices of Women

Introduction

Individuals in Communities

Engaged Knowers

Embodied Knowers

Conclusion

Notes

References

15 Is Science Multicultural?

Challenges and Resources

Question 1: Does Modern Science Have non-Western Origins?

Question 2: Have There Been or Could There Be Other, Culturally Distinctive Sciences That “Work”?

Question 3: Is Modern Science Culturally “Western”?31

Future Sciences: Opportunities and Uncertainties

Notes

16 On Knowledge and the Diversity of Cultures: Comment on Harding

The Task of a Philosophy of Technology

Introduction

17 Philosophical Inputs and Outputs of Technology

Tasks of the Philosophy of Technology

Branches of Contemporary Technology

Technological Research and Policy

Near Neighbors of Technology

The Epistemology of Technology

The Metaphysics of Technology

The Value Orientation of Technology

Technology as a Source of Inspiration for the Philosophy of History

Technology as a Source of Inspiration for Ethics and Legal Philosophy

The Dubious Morals of Technology

The Ethics of Technology

Conclusion: The Centrality of Technology

18 Analytic Philosophy of Technology

References

19 On the Aims of a Philosophy of Technology

Author’s Preface to the French Edition of The Technological Society [1954]

Note to the Reader [1963]

Author’s Foreword to the Revised American Edition [1964]

20 Toward a Philosophy of Technology

I The Formal Dynamics of Technology

II The Material Works of Technology

III Toward an Ethics of Technology

Notes

21 The Technology Question in Feminism: A View from Feminist Technology Studies

I Introduction

Theoretical Underpinnings: The Coproduction of Gender and Technology

Technological Artifacts as Gendered

Masculine Images of Technology

Gender Identity in Relation to Technology

Summary and Tentative Conclusions

Feminist Strategies for Technology

Notes

References

Part III: Defining Technology

Introduction

22 Conflicting Visions of Technology

Optimism

Pessimism

Pessimists and Optimists

References

23 The Mangle of Practice

Objectivity, Relativity and Historicity

Notes

References

24 The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts

Some Relevant Literature

Sociology of Science

Science-Technology Relationship

Technology Studies

EPOR and SCOT

Conclusion

Notes

References

25 Actor-Network Theory (ANT)

How to Resume the Task of Tracing Associations

Learning to Feed off Controversies

Notes

References

26 Actor-Network Theory: Critical Considerations

Actor-Network Theory: Relational Materialism

Some Objections to Actor-Network Theory

Conclusions

References

Part IV: Heidegger on Technology

Introduction

27 The Question Concerning Technology

Notes

28 On Philosophy’s “Ending” in Technoscience: Heidegger vs. Comte

I Introduction

II Science and Comte’s Three-Stage Law

III Technoscience as the “Consummation” of Philosophy

IV Conclusion: Toward a Thinking “at” the End

Abbreviations

Notes

29 Focal Things and Practices

23 Focal Things and Practices

24 Wealth and the Good Life

Notes

30 Heidegger and Borgmann on How to Affirm Technology

1 The Essence of Technology

2 Heidegger’s Proposal

Notes

31 Philosophy of Technology at the Crossroads: Critique of Heidegger and Borgmann

Heidegger

A Contemporary Critique

Instrumentalization Theory

Capitalism and Substantive Theory of Technology

Conclusion: The Gathering

Notes

References

Part V: Technology and Human Ends

Human Beings as “Makers” or “Tool-Users”?

Introduction

32 Tool Users vs. Homo Sapiens and the Megamachine

33 The “Vita Activa” and the Modern Age

1 Vita Activa and the Human Condition

39 Introspection and the Loss of Common Sense

40 Thought and the Modern World View

41 The Reversal of Contemplation and Action

42 The Reversal within the Vita Activa and the Victory of Homo Faber

43 The Defeat of Homo Faber and the Principle of Happiness

Notes

34 Putting Pragmatism (especially Dewey’s) to Work

II. Naturalizing Technology

IV. John Dewey as a Philosopher of Technology

V. Three Objections

VI. Four Advantages

VII. Addendum: “Technoscience”

Notes

35 Buddhist Economics

Notes

Is Technology Autonomous?

Introduction

36 The “Autonomy” of the Technological Phenomenon

Notes

37 Do Machines Make History?

I

II

III

IV

Notes

38 The New Forms of Control

Notes

39 Technological Determinism Is Dead; Long Live Technological Determinism

Technological Determinism Is Dead, or Is It?

A Brief and Symmetrical Detour

Back to Technological Determinism

Conclusion

Notes

References

Technology, Ecology, and the Conquest of Nature

Introduction

40 Mining the Earth’s Womb

The Geocosm: The Earth As a Nurturing Mother

Normative Constraints against the Mining of Mother Earth

References

41 The Deep Ecology Movement

The Dominant Paradigm

Sources of Deep Ecology

Themes of Deep Ecology

Notes

42 Deeper than Deep Ecology: The Eco-Feminist Connection

Notes

43 In Defense of Posthuman Dignity

Transhumanists vs. Bioconservatives

Two Fears about the Posthuman

Is Human Dignity Incompatible with Posthuman Dignity?

Why We Need Posthuman Dignity

Notes

Part VI: Technology as Social Practice

Technology and the Lifeworld

Introduction

44 Cultural Climates and Technological Advance in the Middle Ages

I

IV

Notes

45 Three Ways of Being-With Technology

Ancient Skepticism

Enlightenment Optimism

Romantic Uneasiness

Summary and Epilogue

Notes

46 A Phenomenology of Technics

A Technics Embodied

B Hermeneutic Technics

C Alterity Relations

Notes

47 Postphenomenology of Technology

Introduction

Empirical Research into Technology

Beyond Classical Phenomenology

Toward a Postphenomenology of Things

Notes

References

48 Technoscience Studies after Heidegger? Not Yet

Heidegger’s Post-Heideggerian Critics

Critique of Heidegger’s Technoscientific Critics

Conclusion: A Modest Proposal

Notes

Technology and Cyberspace

Introduction

49 Consciousness in Human and Robot Minds

Good and Bad Grounds for Scepticism

The Cog Project: A Humanoid Robot

Some Philosophical Considerations

References

50 Why Heideggerian AI Failed and How Fixing It Would Require Making It More Heideggerian

1. Symbolic AI as a Degenerating Research Program

2. Heideggerian AI, Stage One: Eliminating Representations by Building Behavior-Based Robots

3. Heideggerian AI, Stage 2: Programming the Ready-To-Hand

4. Pseudo Heideggerian AI: Situated Cognition and the Embedded, Embodied, Extended Mind

5. What Motivates Embedded-Embodied Coping?

6. Modeling Situated Coping as a Dynamical System

7. Walter Freeman’s Heideggerian/Merleau-Pontian Neurodynamics

8. How Would Heideggerian AI Dissolve the Frame Problem?

9. Conclusion

Notes

References

51 A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century

An Ironic Dream of a Common Language for Women in the Integrated Circuit

The Informatics of Domination

The “Homework Economy” Outside “the Home”

Women in the Integrated Circuit

Cyborgs: A Myth of Political Identity

Notes

Bibliography

52 A Moratorium on Cyborgs: Computation, Cognition, and Commerce

Technology and Metaphors of Mind

Mechanizing Humanity and Literalizing Metaphor

Computation and the Cyborg-Imaginary

Upgrading the Human Form

Naturalizing Cyborg Conceptions of Mind

Cyborgs Commercialized

Cyborg-Talk: From Ontological Description to Political Economy

Conclusion: Tools of Inquiry and Metaphors of Identity

Notes

References

53 Anonymity versus Commitment: The Dangers of Education on the Internet

Introduction

How the Press and the Internet Undermine Commitment and Meaning

The Aesthetic Sphere: Commitment to the Enjoyment of Sheer Information

The Ethical Sphere: Turning Information into Knowledge

The Religious Sphere: Making One Unconditional Commitment

Conclusion

Notes

References

Technology, Knowledge, and Power

Introduction

54 Panopticism

Notes

References

55 Do Artifacts Have Politics?

Technical Arrangements and Social Order

Inherently Political Technologies

Notes

56 The Social Impact of Technological Change

Technology and Wisdom

I. Social Change

II. Values

III. Economic and Political Organization

IV. Conclusion

Notes

57 Technology: The Opiate of the Intellectuals, with the Author’s 2000 Retrospective

Technology: The Opiate of the Intellectuals

Author’s Retrospective (2000): Atavism and Modernism

Notes

58 Democratic Rationalization: Technology, Power, and Freedom

I The Limits of Democratic Theory

II Dystopian Modernity

III Technological Determinism

IV Constructivism

V Indeterminism

VI Interpreting Technology

VII Technological Hegemony

VIII Double Aspect Theory

IX The Social Relativity of Efficiency

X The Technical Code

XI Heidegger’s “Essence” of Technology

XII History or Metaphysics

XIII Democratic Rationalization

Notes

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The editors and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to reproduce the copyright material in this book:

1. Selections from Plato, Republic, VIII, trans. G.M.A. Grube and C.D.C. Reeve (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1992), pp. 186–206, 210–12. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing Company Inc.

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3. Wolfgang Schadewaldt, “The Concepts of ‘Nature’ and ‘Technique’ according to the Greeks,” trans. William Carroll, in Research in Philosophy and Technology 2, ed. Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey (1979), pp. 159–171. Reprinted by kind permission of the author.

4. Francis Bacon, “Thoughts and Conclusions on the Interpretation of Nature as a Science Productive of Works,” trans. B. Farrington in The Philosophy of Francis Bacon (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1964), pp. 90–96 abridged; reprinted by permission of Liverpool University Press. “The Plan of the Work 6” and “Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man,” from Novum Organum, trans. and ed. Peter Urbach and John Gibson (Chicago and LaSalle: Open Court Publishing, 1994), pp. 29, 43, 53–56, 202; © 1994, reprinted by permission of Open Court Publishing Company, a division of Carus Publishing Company, Chicago, IL. “On the Idols and on the Scientific Study of Nature,” from The New Atlantis, ed. Jerry Weinberge (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, Inc., rev. edn. 1989), pp. 71–74, 77, 79–83 abridged; copyright ©1980, 1989, reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons, USA. “Sphinx; or Science” and “On the Reformation of Education” from “Translation of the ‘De Augmentis’,” in The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. J. Spedding, R.L. Ellis, and D.D. Heath (London: Longman, 1980), pp. 159–162 and 284–291, abridged.

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6. Auguste Comte, “Lesson One,” in Cours de philosophie positive, from Introduction to Positive Philosophy, ed. and trans. Frederick Ferré (Indianapolis and Cambridge, MA: Hackett, 1988), pp. 1–33. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing Company Inc. All rights reserved.

7. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Final Reply,” from Discourse on the Sciences and Arts, in Collected Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, vol. 1, ed. Roger D. Masters and Christopher Kelly (Hanover, NH and London: University Press of New England, 1992), pp. 110–116. © University Press of New England, Lebanon, NH. Reprinted by permission.

8. Extracts from “The Labour-Process and the Process of Producing Surplus Value,” chapter VII in Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, ed. Frederick Engels (New York: International Publishers, 1967), pp. 173–177; reprinted by permission of International Publishers, New York. Extracts from Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (New York: International Publishers, 1970), pp. 20–22; reprinted by permission of International Publishers, New York. Extracts from “Materialist Method” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology, ed. C.J. Arthur (New York: Inter­national Publishers), abridged from pp. 42–43, 46–49; reprinted by permission of International Publishers, New York. Friedrich Engels, “The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man,” from Dialectics of Nature, 2nd edn., trans. Clemens Dutt (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1954), pp. 170–183. “On Authority,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy, ed. Lewis S. Feuer (Garden City, NY: The Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, 1959), pp. 481–485; reprinted with kind permission of Robin Feuer Miller.

9. Rudolf Carnap, Hans Hahn, and Otto Neurath, “The Scientific Conception of the World: The Vienna Circle,” in Otto Neurath, Empiricism and Sociology, ed. M. Neurath and R. Cohen (1929/1973), pp. 299–318, abridged. Reprinted by permission of Springer.

10. Thomas Kuhn, “The Priority of Paradigms” and “Anomaly and the Emergence of Scientific Discoveries,” in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd edn. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), pp. 43–65 (chs. 5 and 6). Reprinted by permission of University of Chicago Press.

11. Ian Hacking, “Experimentation and Scientific Realism,” from Philosophical Topics, 13 (1982), pp. 154–172. Copyright © by the Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company Inc., on behalf of the University of Arkansas Press, www.uapress.com.

12. Patrick A. Heelan and Jay Schulkin, “Hermeneutical Philosophy and Pragmatism: A Philosophy of Science,” from Synthese, 115 (1998), pp. 269–302, omitting some references. Reprinted by permission of Springer.

13. Joseph Rouse, “What Are Cultural Studies of Science?,” from Engaging Science: How to Understand Its Practices Philosophically (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 237–259 (selections). Reprinted by permission of Cornell University Press.

14. Nancy Tuana, “Revaluing Science: Starting from the Practices of Women,” from Feminism, Science, and the Philosophy of Science, ed. L.H. Nelson and J. Nelson (Berlin: Springer, 1996), pp. 17–35. Reprinted by permission of Springer.

15. Sandra Harding, “Is Science Multicultural?,” from Configurations, 2/2 (1994), pp. 301–330. © 1994 The Johns Hopkins University Press and the Society for Literature and Science. Reprinted by permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press.

16. Shigehisa Kuriyama, “On Knowledge and the Diversity of Cultures: Comment on Harding,” Configurations, 2/2 (1994), pp. 337–342. © 1994 The Johns Hopkins University Press and the Society for Literature and Science. Reprinted by permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press.

17. Mario Bunge, “Philosophical Inputs and Outputs of Technology,” from The History of Philosophy and Technology, ed. George Bugliarello and Dean B. Doner (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979), pp. 262–281, abridged. Reprinted by kind permission of Ms. Virginia Bugliarello.

18. Maarten Franssen, “Analytic Philosophy of Technology,” from A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology, ed. Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen et al. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), pp. 184–188. Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

19. Jacques Ellul, “On the Aims of a Philosophy of Technology,” from The Technological Society (1954/64), trans. John Wilkinson (New York: Knopf; London: Jonathan Cape). Translation copyright © 1964 by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House Inc. Reprinted by permission of Random House UK, and Random House, Inc.

20. Hans Jonas, “Toward a Philosophy of Technology,” Hastings Center Report 9/1 (1979). Copyright © The Hastings Center. Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

21. Wendy Faulkner, “The Technology Question in Feminism,” from Women’s Studies International Forum, 24/1 (2001), pp. 79–95. Copyright © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.

22. Mary Tiles and Hans Oberdiek, “Conflicting Visions of Technology,” in Living in a Technological Culture (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 12–31. Reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis Books.

23. Andrew Pickering, “The Mangle of Practice,” from Rethinking Objectivity:Contemporary Interventions, ed. Allan Megill (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994), pp. 109–125.

24. Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker, “The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts,” from The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, ed. Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor Pinch (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1987), pp. 17–22, 24–28, 46–50. © 1987 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reproduced by permission of the MIT Press.

25. Bruno Latour, “Actor-Network Theory,” from “Introduction: How to Resume the Task of Tracing Associations,” in Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor Network Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 5–25. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.

26. Sergio Sismondo, “Actor-Network Theory: Critical Considerations,” from An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), pp. 81–92. Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

27. Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology,” from Basic Writings, rev. edn. (New York: HarperCollins, [1993] 2008), pp. 311–341. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins USA, and Taylor & Francis Books UK.

28. Copyright © Robert C. Scharff.

29. Albert Borgman, “Focal Things and Practices” and “Wealth and the Good Life,” from Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), pp. 196–226, 285–289, abridged. Reprinted by permission of the University of Chicago Press.

30. Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Spinosa, originally “Highway Bridges and Feasts: Heidegger and Borgmann on How to Affirm Technology,” from Man and World, 30/2 (1997), p. 159–177. Reprinted by permission of Springer.

31. Andrew Feenberg, “Philosophy of Technology at the Crossroads,” from Technology and the Good Life?, ed. Eric Higgs, Andrew Light, and David Strong (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 294–315. Reprinted by permission of University of Chicago Press.

32. Lewis Mumford, “Tool Users vs. Homo Sapiens and the Megamachine,” from Knowledge Among Men: Eleven Essays on Science, Culture, and Society Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of James Smithson, ed. Paul H. Oehser (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966), pp. 126–141, published by Smithsonian Institution Press. Reprinted by permission of the Smithsonian Institution.

33. Hannah Arendt, “The ‘Vita Activa’ and the Modern Age,” from Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 2nd edn. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 7–11, 280–313, some notes abridged or omitted. Reprinted by permission of the University of Chicago Press.

34. Larry Hickman, “Putting Pragmatism (especially Dewey’s) to Work,” from “Tuning Up Technology,” ch. 2 of Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture: Putting Pragmatism to Work (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), pp. 17–20, 20–22, 22–23, 25–43. Reprinted by permission of Indiana University Press. See endnote 1 below for abbreviations used in this selection.

35. E.F. Schumacher, from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (New York: Harper Trade, 1989), pp. 50–59.

36. Jacques Ellul, “The ‘Autonomy’ of the Technological Phenomenon,” from “Autonomy,” ch. 5 of The Technological System (New York: Continuum, 1980), pp. 125–150, 335–338, abridged. Reprinted by permission of Bloomsbury Publishing Group Inc. (Continuum).

37. Robert L. Heilbroner, “Do Machines Make History?” from Technology & Culture, 8 (1967), pp. 335–345. © 1967 Society for the History of Technology. Reprinted by permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press.

38. Herbert Marcuse, “The New Forms of Control,” from One-Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon, 1964), pp. 1–18. Copyright © 1964 by Herbert Marcuse. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston.

39. Sally Wyatt, “Technological Determinism Is Dead,’ from The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, ed. Edward J. Hackett, Olga Amsterdamska, Michael E. Lynch, and Judy Wajcman, 3rd edn. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), pp. 165–180. © 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Reprinted by permission of the MIT Press.

40. Carolyn Merchant, “Mining the Earth’s Womb,” from Machina ex Dea: Feminist Perspectives on Technology, ed. Joan Rothschild (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1983), pp. 99–117. © Carolyn Merchant. Reprinted by kind permission of the author.

41. Bill Devall, “The Deep Ecology Movement,” from Natural Resources Journal, 20/2 (1980), pp. 219–303, abridged.

42. Ariel Salleh, “Deeper than Deep Ecology: The Eco-Feminist Connection,” from Environmental Ethics, 6/4 (1984), pp. 339–345. Reprinted by permission of the author.

43. Nick Bostrom, “In Defence of Posthuman Dignity,” from Bioethics, 19/3 (2005), pp. 202–214. Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

44. Lynn White, Jr., “Cultural Climates and Technological Advance in the Middle Ages,” from Viator, 2 (1971), pp. 171–175, 186–201. Reprinted by permission of the University of California Press and Lynn T. White III.

45. Carl Mitcham, “Three Ways of Being-With Technology,” in From Artifact to Habitat: Studies in the Critical Engagement of Technology, Research in Technology Series 3 (Bethlehem, PA: LeHigh University Press, 1990), pp. 31–59. Reprinted by permission of Associated University Presses.

46. Don Ihde, originally “Program 1: A Phenomenology of Technics,” abridged from Technology and the Lifeworld (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), pp. 72–108. Reprinted by permission of Indiana University Press.

47. Peter-Paul Verbeek, “Postphenomenology of Technology,” from What Things Do: Philosophical Reflections on Technology, Agency and Design, trans. Robert P. Crease (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005), pp. 99–119.

48. Robert C. Scharff, “Technoscience Studies after Heidegger? Not Yet,” from Philosophy Today, 54/5 (2010), pp. 106–114.

49. Daniel Dennett, “Consciousness in Human and Robot Minds,” from Cognition, Computation, and Consciousness, ed. Masao Ito, Yashushi Miyashita, and Edmund T. Rolls (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 17–30. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.

50. Hubert L. Dreyfus, “Why Heideggerian AI Failed and How Fixing It Would Require Making It More Heideggerian,” from Philosophical Psychology, 20/2 (2007), pp. 247–257, 260–268. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

51. Donna Haraway, “Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s,” from Socialist Review, 80 (1985), pp. 65–108, abridged. Reprinted by kind permission of the author.

52. Evan Selinger and Timothy L. Engström, “A Moratorium on Cyborgs: Computation, Cognition, and Commerce,” from Phenomenology and Cognitive Science, 7 (2008), pp. 327–341. Reprinted by permission of Springer.

53. Hubert L. Dreyfus, “Anonymity versus Commitment: The Dangers of Education on the Internet,” from Ethics and Information Technology, 1/1 (1999), pp. 15–21. Reprinted by permission of Springer.

54. Michel Foucault, “Panopticism,” from Discipline and Punish, trans. Alan Sheridan (Pantheon, 1978), pp. 195–209, 216–228, 316–317, 326–333, abridged. Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt and Penguin Books UK.

55. Langdon Winner, “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” from Langdon Winner, The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986). Copyright © 1986 by the University of Chicago. Reprinted by permission.

56. Emmanuel G. Mesthene, “Technology and Wisdom,” from Technology and Social Change, ed. Emmanuel G. Mesthene (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Inc., 1967), pp. 57–62. “I. Social Change,” “II. Values,” “III. Economic and Political Organization,” and “IV. Conclusion,” from Emmanuel G. Mesthene, “Some General Implications of the Research of the Harvard University Program on Technology and Society,” Technology and Culture, 10/4 (Oct. 1969), pp. 489–490, 495–501, 507–511, 513, abridged. Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of the Society for the History of Technology.

57. John McDermott, “Technology: The Opiate of the Intellectuals,” originally from The New York Review of Books (1969); abridged. © John McDermott. Reprinted by kind permission of the author. “Technology: The Opiate of the Intellectuals,” with author’s 2000 retrospective © John McDermott. Reprinted by kind permission of the author.

58. Andrew Feenberg, “Democratic [originally “Subversive”] Rationalization: Technology, Power, and Democracy,” revised version of an article in Inquiry, 35 (1992), pp. 301–322. Reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the above list, and would be grateful to be notified of any corrections that should be incoporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

Introduction to the Second Edition

The first edition of this collection grew out of the ­editors’ experienced needs as teachers of the philosophy of technology. Since its appearance, schools of thought and lines of research have started to differentiate themselves more clearly in this young field, new problems have been identified, and older ones reconceived. Our second edition takes many of these developments into account. Yet in certain basic ways, the original design of our anthology still seems right to us. Although the number of well-stocked anthologies has grown, we ­continue to believe that our collection best addresses two unfortunately common philosophical lacunae. First, most anthologies contain very little material from classical sources (e.g., Aristotle, Bacon, Kant, Comte, Marx) in terms of which technology, or basic concepts that ­contribute to our current ways of conceiving technological practices, are already discussed. Second, in many cases, the main focus is on specific technological issues and case studies, with the result – truth be told – that the selections are sometimes philosophically thin. In our view, especially when it comes to the philosophical consideration of technology, structuring an anthology after the familiar model of the applied ethics reader is likely to have unfortunate pedagogical consequences. In the typical application of this model, one starts with familiar, extra-philosophically identifiable “problems,” samples the variety of “values” or “criteria” in terms of which it has been claimed these problems can be handled, and then more or less leaves it up to the instructor to explain how philosophy somehow gets involved in ­testing the selection and “justification” of these values or criteria.

Regarding the philosophy of technology, however, we believe that this model gets things strategically backwards in important ways. One unintended consequence of its use is that it can leave students, especially those who have not had much previous exposure to philosophy, with the impression that philosophy mostly happens at the level of a “debate” among a smorgasbord of competing sets of values that themselves are somehow simply found, or “given” as logical or sociological options. This serves to confirm the popular non-philosophical conception of philosophy as a “belief system” that one already has or can pick out and thereafter “defend.” The whole idea of philosophy as a process of inquiry, or as critical self-discovery, or as involving a reflective struggle with inherited orientations, is thus muted or occluded. Moreover, as some of the authors below complain, the problems-model also has the effect of privileging one very familiar but perhaps not so innocent outlook regarding technological problems – namely, the idea that technology itself is not a problem, that it simply provides us with a collection of instrumental means, and that the main task is to decide what ends it should serve. To a significant number of philosophers of technology, this allegedly “neutral” interpretation of technology should itself be identified as a topic to be carefully questioned.

The second gap we have found in the available texts is a widespread failure to consider the question of the relation between contemporary technology and modern science. As pressing and immediate as the issues of, say, technology transfer, medical patients’ rights, informatics, and biotechnology clearly are, debates that stay at the level of these issues often silently perpetuate long-standing, deeply held, but now hotly contested assumptions about the nature of science, about the technological ­applications of science, and even about the proper place of science and technology within the larger scope of human affairs. For example, is knowledge essentially connected to a drive for power, as Bacon claimed and Foucault still insists? Is technology primarily to be understood as “applied modern science,” or is the ancient human concern for “making” already implicated in the very development of science itself, as (in very different ways) Comte, Marx, Heidegger, Mumford, Arendt, and various sorts of pragmatists maintain? And should we expect, or do we even have a choice about, technological practices increasingly coming to define the nature and axiological direction of human life? Such questions ­simply cannot be addressed adequately if they are ­permitted to arise only between the lines of selections focused primarily on issues of how to control, modify, or conceptually clarify this or that specific political, ethical, aesthetic, or engineering problem.

With these concerns in mind, then, we have structured our revised anthology as we did the original – in a way that, with or without sharing our reasoning above, instructors have the option of making historical, metaphysical, and epistemological issues just as prominent as ethical, political, aesthetic, and engineering problems. Because we envision this text as useful for anything from introductory undergraduate courses to graduate seminars, our selections vary considerably in length and difficulty, and we have elected to place most of our introductory material at the beginning of the sections rather than all together in one opening essay. Here, we confine ourselves to a brief explanation of the general plan of the six main parts of the text.

The purpose of Part I is to provide a forum for some familiar voices in the Western philosophical tradition whose views about the relation between knowledge and its applications have played an important role in setting up the inherited context within which contemporary philosophy of technology takes its bearings. Our ­selections were made in a way that is also designed to encourage consideration of the question of why – in comparison to other philosophical topics – a philosophy specifically of technology is so relatively recent in origin.

Part II contains contemporary readings that especially emphasize and critically assess the basic assumptions handed down to us from the nineteenth century about science, the relation between modern science and ­technology, and philosophy’s proper treatment of both. We have divided this part into two sections. The first section provides a kind of mini-history of the rise and decline of logical positivist, or Vienna Circle, philosophy of science, together with the emergence of various ­postpositivist criticisms and alternatives. Our intention is to highlight the ways in which these alternatives all tend to stress the importance of precisely the social, cultural, and historical context of scientific practice that positivistic philosophy of science urges us to ignore. The readings in second section illustrate how stressing or ignoring this context directly affects how one conceives the nature of and the relation between the philosophies of science and of technology.

The readings in Part III illustrate what issues are at stake in trying to define technology, how unsettled and pluralistic are today’s attempts to do so, and the extent to which many recent efforts to define technology still tend, sometimes in spite of themselves, to reflect older, more traditional assumptions about what science is and how philosophy should approach it. In addition, these selections make it plain that, whether deliberately or unintentionally, efforts to define technology tend to take a stand on two controversial topics – namely, whether and how modern science has transformed “prescientific” technologies, and whether technology is essentially “applied science.”

Part IV reprints Martin Heidegger’s essay, “The Question Concerning Technology,” and a sampling of responses to it. Heidegger’s essay presents what is probably the single most influential – though by no means most popular – position in the field. Many of the issues discussed in the sections that follow, especially in Part VI, are framed in a way that reflects some species of agreement or disagreement with his views.

In Part V, the readings raise a cluster of general issues concerning technology’s proper role in mediating our relations with the natural world. One section considers the question of whether human beings are essentially just “tool-users” and thus most themselves when they are engaged in technological activities. A second section raises the issue of whether, as some writers have argued, the influence of technology in our lives is so strong and pervasive that it actually functions as a virtually autonomous force and makes all optimistic talk of “controlling” it seem naïve. The essays in the third section bring the issues of human nature and technological power together in relation to the widely debated ecological question of the legitimacy of the famous (or perhaps infamous and even male-gendered) Baconian imperative that encourages us to think of “knowledge” primarily as giving us the power to control our natural surroundings.

Part VI focuses on issues that arise when technology is viewed, not so much as an expression of human nature or as an instrument for controlling nature, but rather as defining a specific and (at least in the so-called “­developed” parts of the world) increasingly dominant kind of sociocultural practice. The essays in the first ­section all ask, in the words of one of the authors, what it is like to “be-with” technology, such that it mediates most of our relations not just with nature but also among ourselves. In “Technology and Cyberspace,” the second section, several authors consider the puzzling issue of whether the computer revolution promises to alter, like it or not, our basic notions of who we are, what a “mind” or “consciousness” is, and what it is to experience “reality.” A third section brings into focus a question implicit in numerous other readings, namely, what are the ramifications for the future of political democracy of our ever more predominantly technological forms of social practice?

Finally, we add a note of grateful acknowledgment. We would like to express our thanks to the publishers and other copyright holders who gave us reprint permission, and to the virtual army of persons who have encouraged and advised us in putting both the original and this revised text together. Among them are (with apologies to those we have inadvertently omitted) Thomas Achen, Babette Babich, Robert Crease, Fred Dallmayr, Jan Kyrre Berg Friis, Trish Glazebrook, Gert Goeminne, Donna Haraway, Patrick Heelan, Michael Heim, Don Ihde, David Kolb, Theodore Kisiel, Carolyn Merchant, David Richard Moore, Søren Riis, Robert Rosenberger, Joseph Rouse, Evan Selinger, Hans Siegfried, David Stone, Timm Triplett, Peter-Paul Verbeek, Kenneth Westphal, Michael Zimmerman, and the two sets of anonymous reviewers of each edition for Blackwell Publishers. Special thanks are due also to Andrew Feenberg for volunteering to ­produce a revised versions of “Democratic [originally, “Subversive”] Rationality: Technology, Power, and Freedom [originally, “Democracy”]”; and to John McDermott for writing, on very short notice, a retrospective on his “Technology: The Opiate of the Intellectuals.” We are also grateful for the continuing support and patience of Jeff Dean, our Blackwell editor, who saw both manuscripts through the press, and Jennifer Bray and Janet Moth, our ­project editors for this edition. Let us add that we are painfully aware that in this rapidly growing field it is impossible for anyone to maintain a working knowledge of “everything important” that might be suitable for a reader such as ours. We therefore continue welcome all criticisms and suggestions about possible sins of omission as well as commission. And, of course, we ask that those we have thanked above be held blameless for this final product.

Part I

The Historical Background

Introduction

At first glance, it may seem surprising that until recently, philosophers have not devoted much time to the question of technology. One might have thought that greater attention would at least have come to be paid to this phenomenon in the modern period when advances in natural and biological science increasingly and obviously made technology a central and dominant feature of society and culture. Yet the fact is that even today – in the North American and British mainstream of analytic philosophy and to a lesser extent among those influenced by late nineteenth- and twentieth-century postpositivist and Conti­nental European sources – the philosophy of technology is still widely regarded as not much more than a small and not particularly prestigious area of specialization.